Mirrored
by thescabbedwings
Summary: Read and find out... Incomplete, please read and review. Rating may change in later chapters.


Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or names that appear in Pitch Black, Dark Fury, or Chronicles of Riddick.

The milieu blurred into an indistinguishable fog of dark and light shapes in his vision, the aftereffects of a taxing and involuntary lapse into cryo-sleep as well as a precautionary dose of sedative to keep him quiet on his way over. The vague outlines of a cramped holding cell blurred into his mind. A heavy door with a single square, stout window pane was the first to reach his bleary eyes. A steady rhythmic pulse rapped carelessly against his temples, punishing him for receiving the drugs he hadn't even desired. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed and slowly stood up, wincing and staggering slightly as the blood rushed from his skull and intensified his headache. The prison-issue mattress, little more than two inches thick and laid haphazardly onto an uncomfortable but functional bed frame, rustled as he stood. The man swayed dangerously and took the initiative to lean against the cold, emotionless steel walls for the support his doped-up legs couldn't offer. Penal facilities never changed.

The electronic whir and click of a lock reached his ears through the reinforced door, which slowly peeled itself open before the muzzle of a gun pushed its way into the room, followed by its holder. The door creaked to a standstill, fully ajar, leaving two heavily armed guards leveling automatic weapons at the prisoner as if he could at any moment attack them, even when he could barely support his own weight. The pair parted, their military boots creating a reverberating thud with each step they took, and left one rather authoritative and ruthless man in the center. "Welcome to Ursa Luna. I hope you enjoy your stay, Mr. Jason Warner."

Jason felt vulnerable, shuffling awkwardly down the surprisingly well-kept corridors with his limbs tightly secured and the lights blaring intrusively onto his scalp from above. He kept his head down, focusing his attention on overhearing the various conversations his escorts drifted through on the long walk past solitary confinement.

"...killed two of them last night, slashed their spines clean in half..." Their voices had dropped in volume to meek whispers as they passed a heavily guarded cell whose door, at the moment, had been swung wide to admit a timid guard whose entire body shivered like a leaf while he hurriedly laid down a tray of the local provisions. Over his shoulder, however, Jason couldn't understand why the officer was so concerned; the cell was occupied by a single man who, although sinewy and deceptively large in build, was fastened quite effectively to the rear wall of the room.

Jason didn't realize he had stopped walking until the disagreeable end of a stun gun set on low power shocked his side, drawing from him a gasp and the desired response to keep moving. A few seconds of complete silence elapsed after they left the cell behind. When the two armed guards behind him once again spoke, it was hushed, subdued, as if the walls of the metal cage surrounding them might crumble at the slightest echo. He could no longer hear what they said; only catching words like 'animal' and 'insane'. It wasn't long before they stopped him in front of a bulletproof plexi-glass door through which he could see a short hall and wrought iron bars opening up to the main prison facility. Inmates clad in identical orange jumpsuits passed the far doorway every so often, but nobody he knew. Jason Warner couldn't really be called a dangerous man.

He'd been sent to slam for the murder of his wife and her suitor, reckless endangerment to his four-year-old daughter, and attempted suicide. They shifted him around from complex to complex, deciding finally on Ursa Luna for the simple fact that they were tired of shipping his ass halfway across the galaxy, even if he was safely in cryo for nine tenths of the time.

The smaller of the two guards unlocked the door with his ID card and shoved him through, letting the other one follow him down to 'show him in', which really meant 'open the other door and wait for him to be preyed upon by the regular prison tyrants. The officer glanced down his nose at Jason, muttering a quick departing statement before pushing him through the door. "It doesn't work to keep Riddick in solitary. It puts him too close to the exit. I'm sure they'll let him out again before the lights go out." The guard clicked his tongue in a mocking manner and closed the door in Jason's questioning face.

In the cramped cell, Richard Riddick's mind stirred. He could see through the mirror-like entity of his goggles that they were preparing to dump him back in with the inmates who chose to waste away here, incarcerated, than even think about trying to haul their asses out of this joint. A cautious guard was fastening short-chained shackles around his ankles, completely oblivious to Riddick's watchful gaze. Beside him, on a small table, lay an empty syringe whose spent dose would be enough to put out a horse for hours, much less a human. He worked with practiced efficiency, unlocking Riddick's arm restraints and catching him as he fell forward with tactfully feigned unconsciousness. As long as they thought the drugs worked, they wouldn't increase the dose, and as long as that happened, he could continue to watch through hidden eyes their comings and goings as he formulated yet another escape plan. The guards of Ursa Luna were soft, careless; not one of them had been employed at the time of the last breakout because frankly, in a maximum security facility, not many occurred. The single guard negotiated Riddick's sizeable body into a temporary cryogenic transport, which was supposed to keep him under long enough to get him to the main branch of the prison.

The prisoner lay completely still and allowed himself to be restrained, his observant glances perfectly hidden behind the heavy tinting of the goggles that protected his light-sensitive eyes. It was amazing how these penal crackheads never thought to take them away, to make sure he was blind and helpless during the day to cut his investigative time by two thirds. But nobody thought that way in slam; they were all the same: involuntary or underpaid and about as intelligent as the moth that flies, entranced, into the flame.

The prison guard repeated what the two before him had done while transferring Jason, only this time he acted quickly before opening the second door, unlocking Riddick's restraints and preparing to just dump him when the door opened wide enough. And he did just that, tilting the portable cryo locker and tipping him carelessly onto the floor on the other side before walking away without hesitation.

In a large room that had come to be commonly known as the corral, where all the new blood was shoved into the mix of both inexperienced and masterful convicts, Jason found himself forced to the ground by an immovable mass that, at the same time, seemed to be regaining himself and rising to his feet without wasting a moment on contemplation. It was like looking up to realize you'd just tripped at Behemoth's feet, at least in his perspective. Above him stood the strapping man with the eerie, mirror-like goggles, in which his own pitifully startled expression was clearly reflected.

A low, animalistic growl clawed its way out of Riddick's throat as he glanced down at the wretched figure curled like an infant on the floor. His voice was deep and cut like a knife, hinting at a double meaning of the phrase it articulated. "Fresh meat."


End file.
